Study of the possible relationships between tramway front-end geometry and pedestrian injury risk.

CONCLUSIONS: When considering only the front-end shape, the best strategy to limit the risk of head injury due to contact with the stiff windshield seems to be to promote the mechanism involving shoulder loading. Because body regions engaged vary with the pedestrian size, none of the groups of designs performed equally well for all pedestrian sizes. The best compromise is achieved with a combination of a large windscreen offset and a high windscreen. Conversely, particularly unfavorable configurations are observed for low windshield heights, especially with a large offset. Beyond the front-end shape, considering the stiffness of the current windshields and the high injury risks predicted for 30 km/h, the stiffness of the windshield should be considered in the future for further gains in pedestrian safety. PMID: 30735446 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Traffic Injury Prevention - Category: Accident Prevention Authors: Tags: Traffic Inj Prev Source Type: research